Back injuries that result from bending at the waist and lifting heavy loads, besides being painful, difficult and costly to treat, cause the loss of millions of dollars in productivity. These injuries are caused by high twisting forces exerted on the spinal column by the cantilevered action of bending. The vertebras which occupy a few square inches of surface operate as a fulcrum in a lever system. The short segment of the lever system is located on the vertebras themselves. The long segment of the lever system includes the arms, the hands and the load itself. Therefore the force applied to this lever may be located feet away from the backbone. As a result tremendous forces are exerted on the vertebras and may cause injuries.
Prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 6,450,131 by Daniel James Broman; U.S. Pat. No. 6,436,065 by Timothy John Mitchell; U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,691 by John F. Ruppert; U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,091 by Kurt D. McDonald and Timothy W. Ecker; U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,944 by Henry R. Hoffman Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 1,634,621 by Isidoro Martinez; and U.S. Pat. No. 1,409,326 by Ernest S Williamson. The prior art does not address in a methodical, well thought out engineering approach, the problem of how to design a back support system that distributes tensile and compressive forces such as to minimize stress on the spinal column and on soft tissues. This invention solves this problem.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a back support system designed such that forces are mainly applied to the skeleton of the wearers rather than to his soft tissues.
It is another object of this invention to distribute forces such that compressive forces are mainly applied to the wearer's skeleton and tensile forces are mainly conveyed to the invention embodiment.
Further features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention over the prior art will be more fully understood when considered with respect to the following detailed description claims and accompanying drawings.